Gable vents are used on the walls of buildings, generally below the pinnacle of the roofline. There are many types of gable vents formed from various materials, such as metal, wood, and plastic. There are also a variety of different shapes and sizes of gable vents. Many of these are specifically designed for use with vinyl siding. Such structures are disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,076,321 and 5,673,526.
Vents are generally assembled in a factory. A nonstandard-sized vent generally must be specially ordered. Specially ordered vents are very expensive. It also takes extra time to order and receive these. This can slow down a remodeling project.
Pending U.S. application Ser. No. 11/381,762, entitled, “Component Gable Vent”, filed May 5, 2006, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference, discloses a gable vent that can be formed and assembled on site, utilizing pre-formed interlocking vent panels in combination with trim channels. The trim channels can be J channels, and used where the vent abuts another surface, such as a soffit, or can be T channels, where the vent abuts siding.
The vent panels disclosed in this application are very similar to vinyl siding. The bottom edges of the vent panels are inwardly curved to engage the upper surface of a section of the vinyl siding. The upper edge of the vent panels is the same as the upper edge of vinyl siding, with a nailing flange and a connecting channel. This allows the bottom edge of the vent panel to connect to the bottom edge of vinyl siding. This also allows adjacent vent panels to interlock, as well as adjacent sections of vinyl siding to interlock with the vent panels.
The disclosed vent panels must be formed by an extrusion process with subsequent post extrusion processing in order to form the venting. This post extrusion processing significantly increases the cost of the vent panels.